Yesterday was our annual cluster service - the time when our four local Baptist churches share a service, usually with a visiting preacher.  Last year was our turn to host but our venue wasn't available so we decamped to the Methodist church down the road.  This year the host church was sans floor, sans electricity, sans anything useful as it is being refurbished, so they decamped back to our venue i.e. the local Primary School.  This may all sound very confusing but I think it says a lot about where we are as a cluster: three out of four churches are small and in times of major transition.  As a result all are learning to become very adaptable and to discover that God does not live in a box called 'church.'

Our service was led by the BU president, the Revd Roy Searle and we'd given him a brief to lead in the style of the Northumbria Community as we felt it would be good for our folk to experience a different aspect of authentic Baptist (whatever image that conjures up!) worship.  So five happy ministers (the one big church has two) imported candles, post-it notes, pots of daffodils, pictures of the local area and enjoyed some creative prayers, some Northumbria Community songs and some 'text telling' by Roy.  Most people enjoyed the service which brought a strong message for all us of based on the John 21 miracualous catch and commission of Peter.  I guess I'm biased, this is one of 'my' significant passages, so I felt God was talking directly to me encouraging me to continue to nudge Dibley into the C21.  Still trying to work out how Roy got away with saying that our building (the closed one) was 'quite naff really' - maybe Presidents have a special annointing!

After the service we had a bring and share tea and if not 12 baskets of leftovers, certainly plenty for all to enjoy.

We distributed the pots of daffodils - one to each church and one to Roy as an informal sign of hope and as a tangible reminder of our connectedness (Brian-ism, and maybe a hint of Rachel-ishness too).  Roy moves on to the North West, we move on in Leicestershire but all the time God is there, one step ahead, to the right, to the left, above, behind, beneath, bringing  hope and a future.

Today we said our last farewell to Rachel in what was the most beautiful funeral I have attended.  The simple wicker coffin lovingly adorned with garlands of ivy and daffodils reflected the beauty of the women whose life we celebrated.

Traditional elements mingled seamlessly with the symbolic act of each person adding a daffodil to a giant cross as a sign of ressurection hope.   Old hymns and specially composed words flowed in perfect harmony as we gave thanks for the privilege of having known her.

The tribute spoke of a life lived to overflowing and of an endless outpouring of humble love - the choice of Bible reading of the Beattitudes could not have been more appropriate.  Rachel would have been embarrassed to think that I might 'post' about her twice but her passing has, in its own quiet way, been almost as influential as her life.

Each person who attended the funeral received a little memory card with these words printed on it: -

Love, like a yellow daffodil, is coming through the snow

Go well, Rachel, to your place of rest and reward.  You were a beautiful daffodil sent to bloom for a season bringing delight to our lives.  When we see daffodils will remember you, and all you inspired within us.  Well done good and faithful servant.

(Photo from Google images)

I am beginning to think about my Palm Sunday service (only because I don't have to do Passion Sunday as it's a 'Cluster' service with the BUGB president preaching).

Last year we had a sermonless service with loads of reading from the Bible and a central visual focus and lots of interactive bits as we went from Palm Sunday to Gethsemane in an hour!  We had Communion as we read of the Last Supper - it was all quite powerful and meaningful really.

This year, given that few will be at Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services, I intend to cover similar ground but in a more traditional preaching form.  I plan on using a Palm Sunday account counterpointed with a Good Friday trial account - two crowds and two very different responses.  It got me thinking about crowd behaviour and wondering which, if either, crowd was an authentic representation of people's views.  We like to think the Palm Sunday crowd was good because people acknowledged Jesus as 'he who comes in the name of the Lord' and the Good Friday crowd as bad (even as we think we Jesus had to die to fulfil his mission) because they shouted 'crucify him!'

This seems too simplistic and I started hunting around the web to find more educated views than my own.  For example, we tend to see massive 'responses' at evangelistic campaigns as 'good' while football pitch invasions are 'bad.'  Why?  At one level the behaviour is the same: people fired up by some sort of crowd fervour act in ways they might not do otherwise.  Yes, people are converted at evangelistic campaigns - but not the numbers who apparently respond.  Likewise decent law-abiding citizens can get drawn into violence once they are part of a big crowd (although here it seems to be called a mob!).

I suppose I'm left wondering if the crowd is ultimately just inauthentic in some way.  It is perhaps authentically 'of the moment' but with time to reflect guilt, regret, a sense of foolishness or artifice can set in.  I'm not entirely sure how this helps with my sermon but maybe we do well to be aware of crowd behaviour and a little less swift to judge individuals as  'good' or bad' because they are part of it.  It also makes me take stock of what I think of as 'good' events which may, to others, be bad (e.g. I think Palm Sunday is good; presumably for some Jews it remains part of a terrible and regretable  heresy). It also makes me think about the internal tensions inherent in a faith that is centred on a 'bad' crowd deciding to execute an innocent man so that 'good' may come out of it, and all the muddled theology that surrounds it - but that's a topic for another day!

Rejoice!  Norman Kember, James Loney and Harmeet Singh have been freed.  Checkout BBC website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4836218.stm

Checks and balances - the next BBC headline is that 15 were killed by a suicide bomb in Baghdad.

For the joys and for the sorrows, for the best and worst of times, for this we have Jesus. (Kendrick)

We rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.  We remember the family of Tom Fox and the former captors of the men now freed: all God's children needing our prayers.

OK, so you may be too young, or too cultured, to remember the awful song (by Fiddler's Dram?) I plagiarised for the title, but it seemed fitting for reflecting on the first outing we organised for our PLUS+ Club (senior citizens' mobile lunch club with a plus, referred to by Social Serivces as 'the wrinkly pub crawl club').

A lifetime of organising camps and outings for Girls' Brigade made this an absolute breeze!  We loaded up our 32 seniors from three pick up points and took a slightly scenic route to Denby.  After an hour and half's browsing in the shops, we enjoyed a two-course lunch and then a tour of the craftroom before another three quarters of an hour to spend more money in the shops!  The sun shone (pleasing those whose dodgy theology had allowed them to request it!) and a good time was had by all.

Thinking back over the day, it was a good mission initiative.  We had failed miserably to fill the coach from our club members (more on that in a minute) and had opened the invitation to friends at 'Dibley + 1 mile' Baptist Church, Age Concern and the WI!  This was great as it brought us into to contact with new people and we were able to share with them something of the ethos of PLUS+.  I also had the opportunity to chat to one of the guides in a similar vein.  Nothing heavy, just mentioned that as a church group we wanted to serve our local community and alleviate issues of social isolation among elderly folk.  All good stuff, and maybe a bit of 'seed sowing', who knows?

It was interesting reflecting on which of our members did and did not come on the trip.  We know that in each sheltered complex there is a good programme of social events, outing and holidays and that many of our folk are part of those networks.  But not those who came on the outing to Denby - we had picked up the waifs and strays, those with mild dementia, the gruff, the awkward and the unlovely who aren't part of the 'in crowd' who enjoy a good social life.  They came along, did their own thing and were embraced by the wider group.  This, too, is mission.

We ran at a loss, we came home exhausted but happy.  People were asking when the next trip would be and where to (Dobbies World in June!) and I do believe that a smile was discernible on the face of God.

Didn't we have a loverly time, the day we went to Denby?  A beautiful day, we met God on the way, and all for £15 you know!  On the way back we shared a good chat, and talked about the next trip, finding the Lord in our senior friends as the wheels went round!